Author Topic: Landing on Phobos  (Read 44066 times)

Offline Khadgars

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Landing on Phobos
« on: 06/26/2013 01:41 am »
Was just thinking about landing on Mars and wanted to start a thread disusing alternatives that are still worthwhile.

From what I understand, landing humans on Mars would at the very least require landing 40 times the weight of Curiosity and if there is other information out there I would be interested in seeing it.  Landing that kind of Mass on Mars is going to be extremely difficult and could easily take beyond the 2030 decade.

So I got to thinking, what would be required to landing on Phobos?  Could a lander be tailored to land on both Phobos and the Lunar surface, slight modifications not withstanding?
Evil triumphs when good men do nothing - Thomas Jefferson

Offline ChrisWilson68

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #1 on: 06/26/2013 03:54 am »
So I got to thinking, what would be required to landing on Phobos?  Could a lander be tailored to land on both Phobos and the Lunar surface, slight modifications not withstanding?

Almost nothing is required to land on Phobos.  It has a thousandth of the gravity of Earth.  Any vehicle with any kind of small thrusters could do a propulsive landing.  You just need some kind of legs, preferably with something to grab on to Phobos so you don't just bounce off.

That's very different from the requirements for a lunar lander.  The Earth's moon has more than two orders of magnitude more gravity.

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #2 on: 06/26/2013 06:40 am »
Was just thinking about landing on Mars and wanted to start a thread disusing alternatives that are still worthwhile.

From what I understand, landing humans on Mars would at the very least require landing 40 times the weight of Curiosity and if there is other information out there I would be interested in seeing it.  Landing that kind of Mass on Mars is going to be extremely difficult and could easily take beyond the 2030 decade.
Curiosity rover: Mass 900 kg (2,000 lb)
"Curiosity comprised 23% of the mass of the 3,893 kg (8,580 lb) Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft, which had the sole mission of delivering the rover safely across space from Earth to a soft landing on the surface of Mars. The remaining mass of the MSL craft was discarded in the process of carrying out this task."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_%28rover%29
So spacecraft weighed about 4 times mass of rover.
Or spacecraft which was sent from Earth weighed about 4 times rover.

So you say there is requirement to land 40 tons.
It seems to be there requirement to land hundreds of tons, but I don't think there any one component which needs delivered which has to have 40 ton mass.
Crew weigh about 100 kg- so 3 crew could weigh less the Curiosity rover.
It seems the biggest single thing is the vehicle which take crew off the surface of Mars- fully fueled it could weigh more than 40 tons. But it doesn't need to land fully fuel. Nor does this vehicle need to be a single stage vehicle. But if one thought one needed to land a single stage vehicle which weighed 40 ton and it had to be be fully fueled when it landed, one could land it using an bigger rocket.
And in terms of mass, what you need at Mars is rocket fuel. So such a 40 ton craft is 90% of it's mass in rocket fuel- so just the craft is about 4 ton + rocket fuel. And vehicle landing it could be around 100 to 200 tons with 10 to 20 tons being dry mass.
So 90% of the mass is rocket fuel, so if ask can you get 1000 tons of rocket fuel to Mars orbit, that can be done, and mass of dry weight of spacecraft is fairly easy.

Quote
So I got to thinking, what would be required to landing on Phobos?  Could a lander be tailored to land on both Phobos and the Lunar surface, slight modifications not withstanding?
Getting to Phobos is similar to docking with another spacecraft- so if ISS was in Phobos Mars orbit, it similar to docking with the ISS.

Landing on Moon is more similar to landing on Mars- Apollo LEM with both it's descent and ascent modules had total delta-v of 4,690 m/s.
http://www.braeunig.us/space/specs/lm.htm
So same vehicle using both stages, starting from Mars orbit, would have enough delta-v to make one way landing on Mars.
« Last Edit: 06/26/2013 06:51 am by gbaikie »

Offline KelvinZero

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #3 on: 06/26/2013 11:03 am »
As is often quoted, Curiosity has about the mass of a Mini Cooper. Im sure you could land someone in that ;)

It would make a great "Top Gear" Finale :D

Offline Russel

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #4 on: 06/26/2013 11:27 am »
Let me share here a small portion of an architecture I'm working on. In another thread I was talking about a mostly propulsive landing on Mars itself.

That would involve a small lander with a mass of about 5 tonnes including the crew, life support, RCS and everything but main fuel.

Such a vehicle would require about 3.8Km/s of effective Delta-V to land on Mars. That would mean at least 10 tonnes of methane/LOX fuel taken on in low Mars orbit.

The vehicle would be scaled to also act an ascent vehicle. In this case a delta-V of 4.5Km/s and a full load of 13 tonnes of methane/LOX fuel.

I designed this lander vehicle with a larger architecture in mind. One where the majority of mass (the habitat and return vehicle) brought from Earth on a manned mission would be parked in a high elliptical orbit around Mars. A near escape orbit with a period of about 3 days.

There would also be a less provisioned habitat in low Mars orbit. This vehicle would also serve as the fuel depot for the lander.

In a notional mission the lander would dock with the habitat in low Mars orbit and refuel. The delta-V required from there to the return vehicle in high Mars orbit is 1.3Km/s That's about 2.5 tonnes of fuel.

Ok, here's the point. Such a lander would be able to take on sufficient fuel in low Mars orbit and then land on Phobos. From there it could land on Deimos. And from there it could dock with the return vehicle in high Mars orbit. All on one tank of fuel. That's the advantage of designing something that is specified to be an ascent vehicle.

Of course the lander would have minimal life support so don't expect a long stay on Phobos.

p.s. The lander I propose would be capable of landing on the lunar surface and returning back to L2. It wouldn't take you all the way from low Earth orbit though.
« Last Edit: 06/26/2013 11:30 am by Russel »

Offline Russel

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #5 on: 06/26/2013 11:34 am »
As is often quoted, Curiosity has about the mass of a Mini Cooper. Im sure you could land someone in that ;)

It would make a great "Top Gear" Finale :D

I'd rather send Jeremy one way to a asteroid :)

Offline Khadgars

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #6 on: 06/26/2013 07:13 pm »
Great discussion, thanks for the input and insight.  I wasn't aware Phobos had such low gravity compared to the moon.

gbaikie I believe the 40 tons was including all components to stay on mars in a single lander as well as ascent stage as well.  I agree there are some intriguing ways to get all the landed mass needed in smaller chunks.  I think, for the first landing or two though, having an entire self sustain system is more likely the way to go.  It appears though I don't have enough information as you stated the total mass for missions probably lies in hundreds of tons making my point moot haha.

Realistically, Phobos and Mars orbit is where we are going to explore Mars first.  Russel, such a design in a lander would probably provide the greatest return on investment, allowing humans to land on both Mars moons and modified to land on the lunar surface.  Pretty incredible if such a thing could be constructed
Evil triumphs when good men do nothing - Thomas Jefferson

Offline gbaikie

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #7 on: 06/26/2013 08:13 pm »
Let me share here a small portion of an architecture I'm working on. In another thread I was talking about a mostly propulsive landing on Mars itself.

That would involve a small lander with a mass of about 5 tonnes including the crew, life support, RCS and everything but main fuel.

Such a vehicle would require about 3.8Km/s of effective Delta-V to land on Mars. That would mean at least 10 tonnes of methane/LOX fuel taken on in low Mars orbit.

The vehicle would be scaled to also act an ascent vehicle. In this case a delta-V of 4.5Km/s and a full load of 13 tonnes of methane/LOX fuel.

I designed this lander vehicle with a larger architecture in mind. One where the majority of mass (the habitat and return vehicle) brought from Earth on a manned mission would be parked in a high elliptical orbit around Mars. A near escape orbit with a period of about 3 days.

There would also be a less provisioned habitat in low Mars orbit. This vehicle would also serve as the fuel depot for the lander.

In a notional mission the lander would dock with the habitat in low Mars orbit and refuel. The delta-V required from there to the return vehicle in high Mars orbit is 1.3Km/s That's about 2.5 tonnes of fuel.

Ok, here's the point. Such a lander would be able to take on sufficient fuel in low Mars orbit and then land on Phobos. From there it could land on Deimos. And from there it could dock with the return vehicle in high Mars orbit. All on one tank of fuel. That's the advantage of designing something that is specified to be an ascent vehicle.

Of course the lander would have minimal life support so don't expect a long stay on Phobos.

p.s. The lander I propose would be capable of landing on the lunar surface and returning back to L2. It wouldn't take you all the way from low Earth orbit though.

If the moons of Mars could be mined, exploring Mars would be a lot easier.

Exploring the Moons of Mars could be fairly brief and not cost a lot.
Having NASA mine the Moons of Mars would completely different issue- I don't think NASA should mine anything in space.
So exploring Mars moons could be around a budget cost of about 30 billion. And whether or to the degree it involves human crew, seems at this point unknowable. NASA would need to do some robotic exploration of the Moons first, it seems.

Commercial mining of Mars moon's could be possible. If it seems one would mine something to make rocket fuel. And exploring the moons with idea of determining if this should be possible, could be main focus of such exploration.

A sequence could explore our Moon to determine if there was minable water, next start [or at that point, continue exploring Mars moons with robotics. And from results of robotic exploration of Mars moons, determine whether a manned exploration to these Moons is needed.
Other destination to explore could be Ceres and Mercury- both have water. And degree either or both could be minable could determined.

If NASA focuses on developing a market for rocket fuel in space [fuel depots] it seems to me, that it will become more apparent that sending crew to Mercury can be easier than Mars. As it requires more delta-v but it's quicker to get to if one uses enough delta-v to go directly to Mercury
using single hohmann transfer, or a trajectory that involves gravity assist with Venus [mainly to change inclination].
Ceres does take a while to get to from Earth. Though Mercury to Ceres is quicker as compared to Earth to Ceres.
With Dawn arriving at Ceres in 2015, this preliminary exploration could tell more about how much water in Ceres and maybe other things which could cause more interest in exploring the dwarf world.

Anyhow, in regard to Mars moons, there could hydrated water and water in pure form [ice/gas]. According to wiki:
"Recent images from Mars Global Surveyor indicate that Phobos is covered with a layer of fine-grained regolith at least 100 meters thick"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phobos_%28moon%29

Regolith on our moon traps volatiles [hydrogen, helium, etc] but regolith 100 meter thick is quite unlike our moon. And addition simply a lot regolith [and our lack of specific knowledge about it] the insulation properties of fluffy regolith could make cold trap. So just a lot regolith could trap a lot of volatiles even if the daytime surface temperature is 120 C [as it is on the lunar surface]. The Mars surface can be 80 F [27 C] in noon daylight and couple inches beneath surface which 80 F can considerable cool- say 50 F or cooler. On a mars moon couple inches below surface could much cooler in comparison- as this fluffy regolith could have far more insulation properties of Mars with a thin atmosphere and Mars with relatively compacted surface.
It seems one could have crazy stuff with this dust- like how transparent is it?
Our Moon has very fine powder in top 3 inches. So first instead of 3 inches the Mars moon could have 3 feet [or more] of this fluffy surface
and it could be fluffier than the Moon. It could so fluffy that resembles a dusty atmosphere [measured in inches rather than miles]. Our moon has a static charge, why can't these moons have something similar- and have more affect due to lower gravity?
Maybe the dust collects dust- dust traps.
The degree it's transparent could actually increase it's interior temperature. But if merely like our moon, the temperature decreases with depth, it's starting surface temperature is cooler, and though the Moon has very little interior heat, these moons should have less interior heat.
« Last Edit: 07/03/2013 09:18 am by gbaikie »

Offline alexterrell

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #8 on: 07/03/2013 07:29 am »
We definitely need a Phobos exploration mission. Shame about Phobos grunt. Something that can drill down through any "fluffy" stuff would be  useful.

One point about Phobos - the gravity is a bit too high to allow Solar Electric vehicles to land. But easy to add a few small thrusters.

If the surface really is loose regolith, then you could inflate a pressure vessel 10m below the surface and have instant radiation and micrometeorite protection.

Offline lunarlady

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #9 on: 09/15/2013 09:18 pm »
What about the theory that phobos is hollow?

Offline Robotbeat

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #10 on: 09/15/2013 09:47 pm »
What about the theory that phobos is hollow?
...has been discredited.
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Offline Robert Thompson

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #11 on: 09/16/2013 01:46 am »
http://www.universetoday.com/58923/could-phobos-be-hollow/
"While scientists now agree that the moon is very likely not hollow, vast caverns may exist within the moon, and it might be a porous body instead of solid. ... Previous flybys of Phobos have shown that it is not dense enough to be solid all the way through. Instead, it must be 25-35% porous. This has led planetary scientists to believe that it is little more than a ‘rubble pile’ circling Mars. Such a rubble pile would be composed of blocks both large and small resting together, with possibly large spaces between them where they do not fit easily together."

Offline lunarlady

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #12 on: 09/16/2013 03:04 am »
Okay so I would not have even suggested it except for this article, i'm really just curious what you guys think, please dont feel obligated to read it, but I found it rather rather thought provoking ...

http://www.eutimes.net/2013/09/experts-puzzled-after-great-comet-makes-mars-orbital-adjustments/

 ;) ;D

Offline ChrisWilson68

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #13 on: 09/16/2013 03:25 am »
Okay so I would not have even suggested it except for this article, i'm really just curious what you guys think, please dont feel obligated to read it, but I found it rather rather thought provoking ...

http://www.eutimes.net/2013/09/experts-puzzled-after-great-comet-makes-mars-orbital-adjustments/

 ;) ;D

That article is supposedly based on a Russian news report, but it doesn't have any link to its source.

Instead, it has uncritical links to Richard Hoagland's pages.  Hoagland is a well-known crackpot who thinks he sees gears in NASA pictures from Mars and that sort of thing.  Hoagland's theories have been discredited over and over, yet he continues to spew out lots of new ones, using the same crackpot reasoning.

Offline Khadgars

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #14 on: 09/21/2013 09:33 pm »
Lol, from the article

"Phobos 1 was “lost” while Phobos 2 was able to establish an orbit around the Mars moon Phobos when it was “attacked” by a still unexplained space craft that showed itself in the last image beamed back to Earth before it was destroyed."
Evil triumphs when good men do nothing - Thomas Jefferson

Offline redliox

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #15 on: 03/11/2014 08:04 am »
The moons of Mars seem to be disregarded by space agencies, save Russia's ill-fated Phobos (and Grunt) spacecraft.

Phobos is the obvious favorite, but Deimos seems eve more neglected for attention.  It might be bland but seems to more practical choice for an outpost: near-synchronous orbit, smoother surface with fewer hazards, and distant orbit easier to access for incoming spacecraft.

Regardless of which moon, a dedicated visit deserves merit.
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Offline ß-OriCinco

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #16 on: 03/11/2014 08:47 am »
I am of the variety of mind that believes the amount of up mass from the surface of Mars (is too difficult) to make a manned trip to the surface worthwhile.

Thus, a manned mission to Phobos or Deimos is about as good as it could get in theory.

So if you park a manned spacecraft on the Mars side of the moon using the Lagrange point, an astronaut may be able to tether down to the surface easily. However, the time to do this maneuver would be challenging.

Once the trip to the surface is over, fire up the engines away from the Lagrange point and head back to earth. 

Otherwise the propellant management to the surface of Mars gets to be risk if there is a hard /extended landing.

Still no traces of methane on Mars so far?  Maybe there is a little propellant in a small moon like Phobos ???

« Last Edit: 03/12/2014 02:06 am by ß-OriCinco »

Offline MATTBLAK

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #17 on: 03/11/2014 10:20 am »
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26428.0

Phobos is definitely where the U.S. and it's international partners should concentrate their efforts. Without the technological challenge and huge expense of developing Entry, Descent and Landing of a big 30-to-40 ton vehicle, the same set of vehicles that could do a NEA mission could go to Phobos with little modification. Using a mix of ordinary hypergolic chemical and Solar Electric Propulsion, a crew of 4 Astronauts could arrive at Mars in relatively low Martian orbit and rendezvous with a set of Sample Return Probes that only needed to reach Martian orbit - not fly all the way to Earth or even up to Phobos. I would suggest 4 to 6 six probes from a mixture of hemispheres and locations, each with about 5kg of regolith and small rocks gathered by Rovers.

Now: what length of time will they be at Mars? If it's a short stay scenario in the region of 30-to-40 days - then there'd just be time enough to scoop up the Sample Return Probe's haul then spend a few days at Phobos and maybe Deimos, too. If it's a long stay scenario in the region of months - depending on the inbound trajectory provided by the SEP stage - then maybe the crew could control the Rovers and Sample Return Probes first from Phobos, exploring that moon before going out to Deimos - spending months at each moon.

In a short stay scenario (I think the best for a first 'test' mission); after snagging the Probe's sample capsules, the crew uses SEP to spiral up to Phobos where they would use Space Pod like Exploration Vehicles and EVA suits to explore and sample the moon. They may spend about a week at Phobos before using a mix of SEP and chemical engine propulsion to get up to Deimos for a few days.

Then, with Deimos' low escape velocity and excellent location - the SEP and chemical engines use most of their remaining delta-vee to send the ship and crew homewards.

The above is a mission I'd love to see someone take a fresh look at, hardware and architecture wise. I'm going to suggest people be 'launcher and spacecraft agnostic'. Orion or an upgraded Dragon could be the Command Craft/Earth Return Vehicle and the Habitation, Logistics and Airlock Modules could be based on current hardware - NASA has been looking at credible Deep Space Hab module designs for the L-2 Gateway concept. Obviously, large scale SEP and storable medium/high thrust propulsion modules and systems would have to be developed, as would the Kubrick 'Space Pod' like exploration craft that could grapple with and touch down on the Martian moons. For a storable propulsion module; I can suggest either a 'stretched' Orion Service Module based craft or an adapted Falcon 9 second stage with hypergolic propellants and a cluster of Super Draco derived thusters, rather than LOX/Kerosene and a Merlin 1D engine. Life support systems for the Habitation Modules? Adapted Russian and ISS equipment with lots of spare parts on hand. Radiation protection? High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) and water tanks.

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/orion/hsf.html
« Last Edit: 03/12/2014 10:03 am by MATTBLAK »
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Offline gbaikie

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #18 on: 03/11/2014 06:29 pm »
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=26428.0

Phobos is definitely where the U.S. and it's international partners should concentrate their efforts. Without the technological challenge and huge expense of developing Entry, Descent and Landing of a big 30-to-40 ton vehicle, the same set of vehicles that could do a NEA mission could go to Phobos with little modification.
...
Depending on NEA mission, but one could have NEA arrive in couple months. Or have crew be returned to Earth in less than 6 months.
A problem with Phobos or NEA is they have not been adequately explored. We should explore them first
with robotic missions.
If you were to send crew to the Moon or Mars, one would first send more robotic spacecraft to explore them prior to crew. Despite idea that some may suppose they have already been explored- with the Moon, many robotic missions and already having a few lunar manned landings. Even if we were to go to the Moon somewhere in equatorial regions as we did with Apollo, one still would probably still want some kind robotic precursor mission before a crew landing. Though I see little reason to send crew to Moon's equatorial regions, and the little explored lunar polar region definitely require robotic precursor missions.

So due to lack of robotic exploration of Moon or Mars, we have don't have much of idea of where crew should land on Mars or the Moon.
With Phobos since it is smaller, one could say finding a particular location is not the same as the Moon or Mars due to the smaller surface area involved. But as wiki says: "Phobos has dimensions of 27 × 22 × 18 km, and is too small to be rounded under its own gravity. Its surface area is slightly less than the land area of Delaware. "
And though Delaware is small, it seem one would still need to determine where you were going to go to exactly on this little rock. I could go to Delaware and just wander around the place, but I would like a map
if wanted to do something other than wander about the place.
So the astronauts probably want some kind specific plan: where they are going, and what they going to attempt to do once they get there.

So Phobos could be good destination go to in near term. Or since it *might* a good destination to go to in near terms, we should be exploring it with robotic missions. So I would say we should explore it with a robotic mission to determine if we further explore it with robotic mission which would may lead to a crew landing on Phobos.

Now there could be few reasons to send crew to Phobos. Generally it seems Phobos could offer shelter from radiation and possibly a source of rocket fuel. Shelter from radiation could a reason for base at Phobos or exporting such shielding material to used for a base not on Phobos.
The problems of Mars orbit and long duration stays is radiation and lack of gravity. The low gravity of Phobos does not seem to solve the problem of lack of gravity- therefore exporting the shielding material to be used on space station which makes artificial gravity could be an option. Phobos might also be good place
to put garbage. As the moon has enough gravity to hold it to the body- instead having garbage in orbit.
And if Phobos has minable water, this water can exported. Water would be needed for crew of space station.
And how much water is available could be quite important, roughly how much, thousands of tons, millions, even a billion ton. So I  think anything more than 1 million tonnes is quite significant- not that thousands of tons isn't. But if roughly assume water is worth somewhere around 1 million dollars per ton at high earth orbit or Mars orbit- million tonnes is 1 trillion dollars worth of water. Or least hundreds of billions worth.

So if there were a lot water on Phobos [1 million tonnes or more] one have something like Earth's Moon.
But we don't know.
But such potential possibilities should make NASA regard Phobos as priority, but NASA doesn't even think our Moon is priority, so....



« Last Edit: 03/11/2014 06:42 pm by gbaikie »

Offline M129K

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Re: Landing on Phobos
« Reply #19 on: 03/11/2014 07:33 pm »
Great post MATTBLAK. To expand on this, you might be interested in this presentation:

http://spirit.as.utexas.edu/~fiso/telecon/Oleson_3-6-13/Oleson_3-6-13.pdf

It shows an architecture capable of sending humans to Mars orbit and presumably Phobos in two SLS launches, plus three commercial launches for outfitting the vehicle.

It should also be possible of pre-placing some additional equipment in Mars orbit like an extra habitat module plus an SEV on a single SLS launch.

Replace SLS with another BFR if that makes you feel better about it  ::)

 

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